Community Corner

Former Bernards Library Director Returns (For Now) to Bernardsville Facility

Anne Meany, a Basking Ridge resident, said she had never worked in the 'new' Bernardsville library.

Tuesday was the first official day for the Bernardsville Public Library's new interim director, Anne Meany, the Basking Ridge resident who had retired from being director of the Bernards Township Library at the end of 2011.

Meany has taken the temporary position in Bernardsville following former director Karen Brodsky's departure last week to become director of the Library of the Chathams.


The Bernardsville Library isn't exactly new for Meany, who was library director in Bernardsville before she moved to take the directorship of the Bernards Township Library. 

Meany met some of the same faces, including the five staff members she said had worked with her before leaving Bernardsville. She said such consistency is a tribute to the borough's library.

Meany said she is seeing library patrons dating back from the time she had served as director. Additionally, many Basking Ridge and Bernardsville residents belong to both libraries, she noted.

But her return to Bernardsville doesn't mean Meany moved back into her same office — in fact, she said she had never worked in the new Bernardsville library. 

Meany said she was library director at the old Bernardsville Library, a historic building on Morristown Road, during her tenure from around 1994 to 1999. That building, now a retail and office building, is famously local for allegedly being haunted by Phyllis Parker, in perpetual search for her beloved, who had been hanged for being a British spy, according to legend.

But Meany on Tuesday had plenty of praise for the new library building, a project that had been in discussion for many years before it actually was built. 

Meany said the new library is "very attractive," and she praised the job that Brodsky had done during her time as director. Brodsky was honored with a reception last Thursday, before her departure.

Although the library will continue as it has been, Meany said library patrons are welcome to make suggestions about how the library is run.

Search for permanent director

Meanwhile, a committee for the Bernardsville Library Board of Trustees is looking for a permanent library director, Meany said.

"They just don't want to rush," said Meany, in the search for a director for a library that is in many ways a main center for the borough.

But Meany said she herself won't be applying to get her old job back.

"I'm retired," she said, although on Tuesday she said she was working in her office.


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